MSI GeForce GTX 560 Ti HAWK review -
Features and specification

Features and specification

Aah yes, yet another 560 Ti GPU to review! So today I wanted to keep things nice and simple. The GeForce GTX 560 Ti is in fact the GF104 GPU, it is tweaked a little to allow higher clock speeds with a presumably lower power draw. The GeForce GTX 560 has 384 Shader processor cores, 32 ROPs, and a 256-bit wide memory interface that connects to four 64-bit controllers with each 256MB memory tied to it, so that's 1 GB of memory for the product released today.

The GPU has holstered rather high GPU clock speeds, with 822 MHz core, 1644 MHz on the shader cores, and 4000 MHz (GDDR5 effective datarate) memory, chunking out a very decent 128 GB/s in memory bandwidth -- reference of course.

Now most of all this sounds familiar eh? Yeah... remember the GF104 being used in the GeForce GTX 460 series? The new GF114 is in fact the basis of that IC, yet now with all shader processors enabled.

For the bigger part of the specifications the two feel similar when it comes to shader processor count, memory bus and clock frequencies, the GTX 560 definitely will be a good chunk faster and as you'll learn a heck of an overclocker.

Reference specifications:

Graphics card

GeForce GTX 460768MB

GeForce GTX 4601024MB

GeForce GTX 5601024MB

MSI GTX 560HAWK

Graphics Processing Clusters

2

2

2

2

Streaming Multiprocessors

7

7

8

8

Shader processor

336

336

384

384

Texture Units

56

56

64

64

ROPs

24

32

32

32

Core Clock

675 MHz

675 MHz

822 MHz

950 MHz

Shader Clock

1350 MHz

1350 MHz

1644 MHz

1900 MHz

Memory Data rate

3600 MHz

3600 MHz

4008 MHz

4200 MHz

Graphics Memory

768MB GDDR5

1024MB GDDR5

1024MB GDDR5

1024MB GDDR5

Memory interface

192-bit

256-bit

256-bit

256-bit

Memory bandwidth

86 GB/s

115 GB/s

128 GB/S

134 GB/s

Fab node

40nm

40nm

40nm

40nm

TDP

150 Watts

160 Watts

170 Watts

200 Watts

If you look closely at the SM (Streaming Multiprocessor) partitions, then you can see and calculate that the 336 Shader processors based GF104 on the GeForce GTX 460 has in fact seven SM partitions. 7 are enabled = 336 Shader processors. The GF114 GPU has 384 shader processors, and has that last available SM cluster enabled.

Okay so the GeForce GTX 560 Ti is still based on a 40nm fabrication node, still has 1.95 Billion transistors and thus looks and feels like the GTX 460, yet now with 48 shader processors and accompanying PolyMorph Engine added, an extra 8 Texture units and sure, much faster clock frequencies. So is the GF 114 in fact a GF104? Yep, it sure is.

All cards deriving and based on this GPU will be based on a dual or even triple-slot cooling design based on what the AIB/AIC partners prefer and come with two dual-link DVIs and a mini-HDMI connector. HDMI will again pass sound through, including bit streaming support for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master. Being a mid-range product, only 2-way SLI will be allowed and thus you'll only see a single SLI finger/connector on the PCBs. Okay, the next stop will be an extensive photo-shoot of today's product.

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